Saturday, May 13, 1995 - Aruba

We both felt a lot better after 10 or 11 hours' sleep. I still had laryngitis, but that's no big deal. The wind was still blowing 20 to 30 knots, but our anchor was holding. We were next to the airport, so jumbo jets kept landing and taking off with a roar. We had a great view of the Hooiberg, Haystack Mountain, which is a volcanic cone over 500 feet high. About a quarter mile southeast of us was a pink building that we assumed was a restaurant. Motorboats kept going back and forth, carrying customers. We even found an English-language radio station that plays lovely music. Roy wanted to go into town to look around and get information about the marinas, but it took him several hours to gather up the courage to paddle in this strong wind. He wouldn't have any trouble blowing in to town, but getting back to the boat could be a problem. Around 1:30 he finally took off, with feathered paddles. First, he paddled over to the airport, a few hundred yards away. Then he paddled upwind along the shore about half a mile or so. He didn't have any problems, so he paddled to town, landed on a little beach, and walked around town. He learned a lot, including that the pink building out here belongs to the big hotel, Sonesta Suites. The shuttle boats are free and go right from the hotel lobby to the pink building. They'll pick us up if we wave. Roy had a ball walking around town. He came back around six o'clock, filled with enthusiasm. He brought chicken, oranges, and bread. For several weeks, there has been a slow leak in the engine's cooling system. Before starting the engine, Roy usually had to add half a pint or more of water. When we're not connected to shoreside electrical power, the engine has to be running when the microwave oven is going in order to generate enough electricity. Tonight, Roy poured two glasses of water into the cooling system, and then a third and a fourth. The water seemed to be leaking out as fast as he put it in, so he took all the movable stuff out of the engine compartment and looked for the leak with a flashlight. Eventually, he found a big split in the neoprene exhaust boot for the fresh-to-salt-water heat exchanger. And he even had a spare on board! Were we ever lucky that the split occurred when and where it did! If it had happened at sea, or worse, last night when we were maneuvering, trying to find an anchorage, we'd have been in a real fix. Here at anchor, Roy had no problem replacing the boot.